Mass spectrometers comprising ion detection systems which employ Analogue to Digital Converters (“ADCs”) are well known.
Mass spectrometers which utilise multiple gain ADCs or which use ADCs having an increased number of vertical bits (as technology continues to develop) are also well known.
It is known to extend the dynamic range by cascading multiple ADCs together at multiple gains. However, this approach requires additional ADCs to be provided which is relatively expensive.
US2011/0226943 (Räther) discloses a method of increasing the dynamic range of a mass spectrometer by replacing measured saturated intensity values with a corrected intensity value. The corrected values are summed to provide a sum spectrum. Such an approach does improve the dynamic range of a mass spectrometer. However, the improvement in dynamic range is limited.
It is desired to provide an improved mass spectrometer and method of mass spectrometry.